Romily, a journalist on ‘Garden Leave’ and undergoing therapy because of a workplace ‘incident’ doesn’t believe she has ‘anger issues’ but is furious about having her career on hold!
Her attempts to write her ‘dream’ novel are relentlessly disrupted by neighbourhood Leaf Blowing despite her struggle to suppress them, her murderous thoughts mysteriously manifest as fatal ‘accidents’. Death for anyone that dares to leaf-blow in her proximity!
Each time however, Romily is weirdly invigorated and makes great progress on her novel.
The Police, initially dismissing the deaths as accidents, soon start to dig deeper. Eva, Romily’s pregnant daughter, pieces it together and confronts her mother - but luckily her baby’s birth momentarily distracts!
Romily’s lover Danny endeavours to help her overcome her demons but will he succeed before her rage consumes him, Police forensics close the case, or Eva reveals the TRUTH?
ROMILY - Beth Kayes
Beth and Matt have been working together since she helped him cast his first short ‘The Dregs’ from a selection of her students at Tapac /Western Springs. After completing the 48hrs Film Festival together in 2024, they determined to collaborate on a feature project in the near and this is the resulting mahi.
DAM NATIVE - Daniel Haimona
A Hip Hop pioneer of Aotearoa - where Māori culture, social and political themes, injustice, fun, the love and beauty of life and the resilience of the human nature heavily influence Dam Native’s artistry as an MC, musician, producer and writer. His album “Kaupapa Driven Rhymes Uplifted” is regarded as one of the most influential albums in NZ music history. Danny is to play a version of himself in the film - his first acting role.
EVA - Shayla Crombie
Shayla studied acting at Tapac under Beth’s tutelage and played a lead role in ‘The Dregs’ and a supporting role in Matt’s 2nd short ‘The Dinner Agreement’. Shayla has completed a Bachelors of Screen Arts at AUT where she specialised in TV and Screen Production. Since graduating Shayla has been contracting in Film & TV mostly as an art assist.
THERAPIST - Florence Noble
Florence’s unique style of irreverent comedy has gained her much notoriety and critical attention. Noble was recently described as ‘wonderfully deadpan’ and ‘psychic comedy perfection’ for her role in critcally acclaimed psychedelic feature, Michael Duignan’s The Paragon, premiering at Rotterdam 2024 and landing US distribution.
Matt Campbell Downes Writer / Director
Matt has been working on a feature based on his award winning 'The Dregs'
and finally completed a draft that everyone is happy with in 2024. However in order to execute his vision to lovingly recreate the Christchurch in the 80s there is considerable pre-pro work yet to be done (see Digital Square Project). So he decided to write something else that was a little more manageable as a first feature - which is how ‘The Onehunga Leaf Blower Massacre’ has come about.
Mary-Lyn Chambers Script Consultant
Mary-Lyn Chambers is a Writer-Director based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her recent work Karanga premiered at Māoriland and opened the 2024 Melbourne Women in Film Festival. Chambers’ films and pilots have graced hundreds of festivals, including Slamdance and HollyShorts. Her accolades include Best TV Pilot at the Downtown LA Film Festival, Best Female Director at HollyShorts, Best International Short in Manchester, and Best Screenplay at Largo. Her work has found audiences on Amazon Prime, Sky, and Telemundo.
Cameron Chittock Producer
From his start in visual effects and puppets for early Peter Jackson films
‘Bad Taste’ and ‘Meet the Feebles’, Cameron has since created, directed and
or produced numerous films and TV shows including ‘Oscar & Friends’ (ABC, FOX and ITV), ‘Life on Ben’ (Lloyd Levin), ‘Bottle Top Bill’ (ABC, Channel 5 ),
and multiple DVD films for Dreamworks. Recently he has worked asHead of Production for Pukeko Pictures, as Associate Producer on the animated feature ‘Mosley’ (Apple TV) and as VFX producer on the XYX Sci Fi horror film ‘ASH’.
Clayton Carpinter - Cinematographer
Clayton is an award winning DOP with ten plus years experience. Happy working with large commercial crews through to smaller indie short films. Clayton first worked with Matt on ‘The Dregs’ where they easily fell into stride with each other creatively, they then made 'The Dinner Agreement' together, are collaborating on the Dregs feature and now OLBM is all go!
Lucie Lesnard - Production Manager
Lucie love to interact with all members of a crew. Her aim is to make all film
sets she is a part of memorable ones by creating an efficient and enjoyable atmosphere that will allow the team to create their best work. Recently Lucie worked as 1st AD on web series directed by Alex Plumb and the “The Daughter
of Ganemede” directed by Matt and selected for the 48hrs Auckland Finals.
Levi Andreas Roberts-Brothers - Production Manager
Levi Andreas Roberts-Brothers, a graduate from SAE with a Bachelor in Screen Production, emerging with a versatile career as a Writer, Director, Producer, and 1st Assistant Director, contributing to numerous short films. Presently, he is gearing up for the festival circuit with his debut short film, “Birdsong” (2024).
In addition, Levi is a co-founder of Forever And Always Ltd, an audiovisual production company established in 2021.
Julian Wagner - Gaffer
Julian is the proud owner of Starlight - founded in 2023, starting from scratch
and building it up to a 1.5-ton package. As one of the youngest gaffers in NZ,
his incredible passion for lighting has created loads of creative opportunities including short films, TV shows, Ads and Music videos – check out his CV on starlightnz.com – impressive!
Katrina Lajunen - Legal Advisor
Katrina got started in London working at large commercial law firm
Hogan Lovells. In 2008 she moved in-house for Viacom (Paramount) first at MTV and then at Nickelodeon where she headed up the Nick UK legal team for years advising on a wide range of commercial and intellectual property matters. Katrina returned to NZ in 2021.
Jeremy Masters - Editor
Jeremy Masters is an award-winning editor with 20+ years’ experience working with some of Australasia’s leading producers and directors crafting T.V shows, web series, short films, music videos, docos and TVCs. Highlights include Lightbox Drama ‘High Road’, TVNZ Drama ‘Wilde Ride’, ‘The Dregs’ and DocEdge Fest “This Air is a Material”. As well as editing OLBM - Jeremy will no doubt be sneaking in a few drone shots - and why not condsidering he is an accomplished pilot.
Joost Langeveld - Music Supervisor
Joost is co-director of Bigpop, a full-service music production facility whose activities also include A&R, label services and music publishing.Joost is partner to a wide range of local and global facing projects either as a musician, composer, producer, A&R, collaborator or music industry entrepreneur. Matt and Joost have been working together for 20+ years.
Glen Cleaver - Sound Post
Glen is a Senior Audio Post Production Engineer, Sound Designer based at Big Pop Studios and in such capacity has mixed or managed the sound post on virtually every Ad, music video, short film and or documentary content piece that Matt has made in the last twenty years. Needless to say he has great ears and they have an awesome working relationship.
I HATE Leaf Blowers.
I find them really stressful – they literally fry my nervous system. And it
seems my feelings about LBs are widely felt – everybody I have spoken to
about this idea loathes them and quickly took to the concept of the film.
I believe widespread dislike of Leaf Blowers is the main reason this project
has so quickly gained traction.
The other aspect of this story that really resonates with me is the ‘Anger Management’ thing - especially within the context of corporate employment and HR. Alongside legitimate complaints, there is typically quite a lot of ‘sillyness’ that goes on in these sort of environments where small altercations can sometimes quickly get blown up out of proportion. I love that Romily’s angry at being ‘wrongly’ accused of being angry.
I believe audience’s will find it really enjoyable and cathartic to watch a comedic film that is roasting the heck out of these subject matters - Leaf Blowers and Anger are things that everybody has some experience with!
I’ve made it a Romantic Comedy because it adds some hope of redemption for our protagonist Romily – who is caught up in a cycle of horror and spiritual release that needs to be healed / resolved. It’s appropriate that it’s Danny - wise, spiritual and someone who has suffered the opposite of her condition (Leaf Blowers saved him from ‘Broom Trauma’) who understands what she’s going through and who has the tools and the aroha to help her break out of it.
Matt Campbell Downes Writer / Director